THE CODE BOOK

By Justin A. Day

THE CODE BOOK By Justin A. Day Codes and ciphers have been around as long as people have wanted to keep secrets. The first and simplest codes substituted a symbol for each letter of the alphabet. Each letter of the alphabet is itself part of a code: You learned to sound out letters and put them together to form words when you learned to read. The symbols used long ago were more complicated than the ones we use today, but the idea is the same. In this book, well use the words code and cipher to mean the same thing. However, theres a difference. A cipher substitutes numbers, symbols, or other letters for the letters in the message. A code cant be broken without a key. For instance, if you captured the following message, you wouldnt be able to solve it unless you knew that Aunt Fanny was the stolen property, train station was the town park, and later meant midnight. Aunt Fanny will arrive at the train station later today would make you think a relative was coming to town. You can make up your own code with words and phrases that mean different things, but your buddies will have to have a copy of the key that tells them which phrase stands for which part of the message. In this book well stick with ciphers, but well call them codes sometimes. EASY CIPHERS You can make an easy cipher by writing out your sentence with the letters strung together. Then break the letters up into groups of five. If your letters dont come out evenly, add null letters. Null letters are letters that dont mean anything. Usually you can use Q, X, or Z, since they dont appear very often in everyday words. See if you can decipher this message: THEBE STIME TOGOT OTHEC AVEIS WHENT HESHI PMENT HASBE ENUNP ACKED.

If you want to make this message a little more complicated, simply write it backwards: DECKA PNUNE EBSAH TNEMP IHSEH TNEHW SIEVA CETHO TOGOT EMITS EBEHT. Here is a simple code. It uses symbols to represent letters. This type of code is also called a substitution code because it substitutes symbols for letters.

Use the code to translate this message:

Can you use the code to encipher this message? BRING PLANS TO CAVE AT TEN.

Another very simple code is to substitute numbers for letters, like this: A=1 G=7 M = 13 S = 19 B=2 C=3 D=4 E=5 F=6 H=8 I=9 J = 10 K = 11 L = 12 Y = 25 N = 14 O = 15 P = 16 Q = 17 R = 18 Z = 26 T = 20 U = 21 V = 22 W = 23 X = 24

To simplify the code and keep the numbers distinct, we have used dashes to separate the numbers. See if you can discover the message hidden here: 1-18-5 5-1-19-25 20-15 13-1-11-5.

The nice thing about this code is that even if you forget which number stands for which letter, you can write out the letters and number them wherever you are. Because this is such an easy code to break, why not number the letters backwards? That is, A=26, B=25, Z=1, and so forth. Of course, you and your friends will have to develop a way to let each other know whether youre using the forward or the backward code. Perhaps you can make up a special symbol to tell your friends to use the backward code, like a backward C. You can change this cipher by writing out your message in code, then dividing the numbers into groups of five, using null letters to complete the pattern. For example, the message above would look like this: 3-15-4-5-19 1-14-4-5-1 19-25-20-1513 1-11-5-25-26. When you decipher it, it will look like this: CODES AREEA SYTOM AKEYZ. Separate the words so that they make sense. CODES ARE EASY TO MAKE YZ. Drop the null letters and you have your message. Use the backward number code to encode this message: RAIN DELAYS SHIPMENT. COME BACK TOMORROW.

THE BOX CODE If you can draw a box, you can make another simple code that substitutes numbers for letters. Draw a box that is five squares wide and five squares high. Across the top of the box, number each column from 1 to 5. Number the rows down from 1 to 5, too. Now put a letter of the alphabet in each box, starting with A in the upper left corner. Oops! There are 26 letters in the alphabet but only 25 squares. Now what? Theres an easy solution: Put the letters I and J in the same box! Since the letter J doesnt appear in as many words as the letter I does, itll be easy to tell which letter should be used when you decipher the message. Your square should look like this:

To encipher a letter, put the number of the row first, then the number of the column that your chosen letter appears in. For instance, B would be 12 and S would be 43. You can write a secret message like you did when you used numbers to stand for letters, but each number will have two digits in it, never just one. Separate your two-digit numbers with hyphens or create a message using words and the numbers, like a shopping list or telephone numbers. If you use phone numbers, your recipient must know that he should combine the numbers in groups of two and ignore any hyphens or other symbols in the number. Use zeros as null numbers to finish any incomplete numbers. What do you think this message says? Phil, call me at any of these numbers: (153)315-3254, (331)511-4215, (511)114-1500. Jason

Or this one: 15 pencils @ 33 15 bunches of radishes @ 32 a bunch 54 lbs. of cabbage @ 33/lb. 15 yoyos @ $11each 42 sandwiches @ $15 51 bags of snack chips @ $11/case 14 cases pop @ $15/case

You can probably think of lots of other ways to use this code. Have fun!

MORSE CODE Morse Code has been used since Samuel Morse invented the telegraph. He developed his code to be used with electrical current. When the current passed through the wire for a short time, it produced a short click, a dot. A longer flow produced a longer click, a dash. The combinations of dots and dashes represent the alphabet. A good telegrapher could understand the message without having to write down the dots and dashes first. He listened to the code and translated it into letters as he wrote. Here is the Morse code. You can practice with knocks, whistles, or other sounds. When its dark, you can also use flashlights to signal your message.

Can you decipher this Morse code message?

Will your friends understand this message when you put it in Morse code? SECRET MEETING AFTER SCHOOL, MY HOUSE.

POSITION CODES Position codes are another popular kind of code. This is one of the easiest. Start by drawing two vertical lines with two horizontal lines across them, like a tictac-toe game. Starting with A, fill in the first nine letters of the alphabet. Your chart will look like this:

Then draw an X and add the next four letters of the alphabet, like this:

Now add dots to the tic-tac-toe board and add the next nine letters:

Add dots to the X and finish filling in the alphabet:

This is called the Masonic cipher. It was used during the Civil War by Northern prisoners in Confederate prisons to communicate with friends on the outside. It can be memorized in just a few seconds, and youll be ready to send and receive messages almost instantly. See how long it takes you to decipher this secret message:

Now encipher this message: TAKE TREASURE TO CLUBHOUSE AT ONCE.

CODE STRIPS AND CODE WHEELS Code strips can mystify the smartest people because the message comes out as nothing but dots! This is what the title of this book looks like when written with a code strip:

Heres how to make your own code strip and some for your friends. On a computer, set your left margin for .3, then type the letters in order, using upper case. You want the A to be as close to the edge of the paper as possible. Separate each letter with a couple of spaces. Type another row underneath the first one, a couple of lines lower, or use your copy and paste function to make several rows easily. Print your page on heavy paper such as card stock. Cut the strips apart and give one to each of your friends. The strips must be identical and should look like this: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Draw a margin line down the left side of a piece of paper, or use the margin thats already printed on your notebook paper. Lay the left edge of the strip on the margin line at the top of the page. Put a dot under the first letter of your message. Move the paper down a bit so that the first dot you made is covered and put a dot under the second letter of the message. Keep on until you have dotted your entire message. Your friends will use their strips the same way to decode. They line up the strip at the top but put the strip under the first dot and read the letter that lines up below it. Its quick and easy to read this kind of message! You can vary the code strip by printing the letters in reverse order: Z Y W V U T S RQ P O N M L K J I H G F E D C B A 10

Just make sure you let your friends know which strip to use, the frontward or the backward strip. You can use code strips to write messages with words instead of dots. Make another strip, twice as long as the original strip, which repeats the alphabet twice. Then place the original strip above the double strip and put the A over any other letter. This shifts all the letters in the message to the right.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z A B C D E F G H I J .

For instance, if you want to substitute the letter F for the letter A, put the A of the short strip above the F of the long strip. Then translate your message by writing the letters on the long strip that come under the letters on the short strip. Heres an example: LEAVE AT MIDNIGHT becomes QJFAJ FY RNISNLMY Because of the way computers space letters, you may have to shift your code strip slightly to line each letter up exactly, but your computer may have a command that will let you space letters evenly across the strip. Then the I will take up as much space as the H. Practice will let you encode a perfect message. The ancient scytale (pronounced SIT-a-lee, like Italy) is another position code that uses a strip of paper. It was used by generals in the Spartan army to send messages as long ago as 500 B.C. They scrambled the letters in the message by wrapping a piece of thin hide or other material that could be written on around a rod. Then they wrote the message across the rod as usual. When they reached the end of the wrapped piece, they turned the rod and continued the message on a new line below the last one. When the strip was unwound, the letters were scrambled and the message could not be read unless the strip was wrapped around a rod of the exact same size. You can make a variation of the scytale by using a strip of paper and an oldfashioned six-sided pencil or a round dowel, as long as the shape doesnt taper down at one or both ends. Differences in diameter will throw the message out of whack. Cut a strip of paper about wide and 8 long. You can make an easy strip by cutting along two lines on a piece of notebook paper. Tape the end of the paper strip to the pencil at an angle and wrap it around the pencil so that the edges touch but dont overlap. Like this: 11

Make sure the paper fits tightly around the pencil. Now write your message across the paper, putting one letter on each wrap of the paper:

When you unwrap the paper, the message will be scrambled: TST HAA ISL SCE IY. Your buddies can read the message easily by wrapping the strip around an identical pencil or dowel and reading across, just like you wrote it. If you want to confound someone who might know how to decipher this, write the message backwards.

CIPHER WHEELS Another way to encipher messages is to use a cipher wheel. It works the same way as the code strip but is easier to use, once you set it up. It takes about half an hour to make one. Heres how. Youll need a sheet of poster board or card stock, a six-inch (or bigger) square piece of cardboard, a compass for drawing circles, a pin, a paper fastener, and a pencil. Set your compass at two inches and draw a circle. The circle will be four inches across. Then set the compass for one and a half inches and draw another circle. This one will be three inches in diameter. Mark the centers of the circles with a dot. This is where youll join them later with a pin. Cut them both out. Heres where it gets tricky. You must divide each circle into exactly 26 sections, one for each letter of the alphabet. The easiest way to do this is to trace the pattern on this page and then make a template on poster board. Or you can divide 360 by 26 and use your compass to mark the outer edges of the circles. The angle will be about 14. Your math teacher can help you with this. (The template is easier!)

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Now push the pin through the center dots of the template and the smaller wheel. Put the template on top. Pin the circle and the template firmly to the cardboard and trace the sides of the template onto the circle. Swing the template around the pin, line up the side with the line you just drew, and draw another one. In a few minutes youll have the circle marked into 26 sections. Now do the same with the bigger wheel. Once your wheels are sectioned, write the alphabet around the edge of each one, one letter to a section, with the letters facing toward the center. When both wheels are marked, put a paper fastener through the center dots so that the smaller wheel is fastened on top of the bigger one. You should be able to line up a letter on the small wheel with one on the big wheel. Your cipher wheel is ready to use!

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The outer wheel is always the plain text circle. To set up a G code, place the A on the outer circle over the G on the inner circle, and write your message, just as you did with the code strips. To decipher the message, place the G of the inner circle under the A of the outer circle and read the message. Try to figure this message out: YRKKVUBKX ZUTOMNZ

Use the G code to encipher this one: 14

BRING FLASHLIGHTS FOR MORSE PRACTICE.

You can also make a reverse cipher wheel. Make another outer circle and print the alphabet on it backwards. Print the inner circle with the letters in regular order. Then encipher and decipher messages like you did with the strips. You can switch the outer wheels or you can make a whole new cipher wheel for backward codes. Or maybe you can invent a way to put all three circles together in one wheel.

MULTIPLICATION TABLE CODES If you remember your multiplication tables, you can create an excellent transposition code, sometimes called the Rail Fence Code, because the letters zigzag like an old rail fence when the message is enciphered. To create a Rail Fence Code of your own, write your message like this: SEND HELP AT ONCE becomes S N H L A O C E D E P T N E

Do you see how the letters in the message zigzag back and forth? Now move the bottom line up to the end of the first line: SNHLAOCEDEPTNE You may leave the code like this or break it up into sections: SNH LAO CED EPT NE You can also add null letters to the original message to make words of all one length. In this case were making four words of four letters each. Since we have only 14 letters in the original message, we add two null letters to give us four sections of four letters each. 4 x 4= 16. SEND HELP AT ONCE QT becomes S N H L A O C Q E D E P T P N E T 15

Again, move the lower line up to the end of the upper line: SNHLAOCQEDEPTNET Divide into words of four letters. SNHL AOCQ EDEP TNET To decode the message, simply divide the message into two equal parts and drop the last half of the sentence below the first, in a zigzag pattern: S N H L A O C Q E D E P T N E T Now the message is easy to read! But there are other ways to encode the message. There are three multiplication tables that fit 16: 8x2, 2x8, and 4x4. In the first message we used the 8x2 position, that is, eight letters in each row and two rows. We can also use eight rows with two letters in each, or four rows with four letters in each, and we dont even have to use the rail fence pattern. We can just write the message in columns and rows, with the letters underneath each other and read down each column. You may find it helpful to use graph paper to encode longer messages. 8x2 SNHLAOCQ EDEPTNET 2x8 SA ET NO DN HC EE LQ PT 4x4 SHAC EETE NLOQ DPNT

Move the rows up in order, just like you did for the first encoding. Thus, the 2x8 code will look like this: SAETNODNHCEELQPT or SAET NODN HCEE LQPT The 4x4 code will look like this: SHACEETENLOQDPNT or SHAC EETE NLOQ DPNT. The person receiving your message must know the times table youve used to encode it. Tell him beforehand what times table youll be using. For instance, if he knows youve used 2x8, he goes to work in reverse and breaks the message up into eight groups of two letters: SA ET NO DN HC EE LQ PT. Then he drops each row below the one to the left, as shown above. Now he can read the message down. If you intercept a rail fence message, you can solve it by factoring the total number of letters and trying different combinations until you break the cipher. 16

Here is a rail fence message. Can you solve it? Remember to find the factors of the total number of letters in the message. IETFSOHTATCLAOYEHXVSAROB. You can make multiplication codes more difficult by writing the message backwards and then encoding. The alphabet looks like this when you put it in a grid of five columns and five rows. Well leave out the J so that we have an even pattern. V Q WR X S Y T Z U L F MG N H O I P K A B C D E

As you can see, you can read the alphabet by starting at the upper right corner and reading down. When you get to the end of a column, start at the top of the column to the left of the one you just read. Our message, SEND HELP AT ONCE, would look like this when written backward: ECNOTAPLEHDNES. We cant divide 14 letters into groups except by making seven groups of two or two groups of seven, and thats too easy to break. Lets add a null letter and split the 15 letters into factors. We can either set the code up as 3x5or 5x3. Lets use 5x3 three rows with five letters in each row. C T L D S E O P H E V N A E N Shift the rows up and right to get: C T L D S E O P H E V N A E N Split into groups of five letters: CTLDS EOPHE VNAEN You can also write your message vertically in reverse. Lets use the same example, but instead of writing the message from top to bottom, write it from bottom to top: V N A E N E O P H E C T L D S 17

Shift the groups of letters as before: VNAENEOPHECTLDS And split: VNAEN EOPHE CTLDS You can even use a diagonal pattern for multiplication codes. This message starts at the upper left corner, then goes to the second letter in the first row. The next letter in the message shows up under the first letter in the first column. The fourth letter goes in the third column of the first row; the fifth letter in the second column of the second row; the sixth letter in the first column of the third row. Sounds complicated but its really like doing a word search puzzle and looking only for words formed diagonally. Heres a good message: BRING THE MONEY TO THE OLD OAK TREE TONIGHT AT SEVEN. There are 42 letters in that message. We can make 42 by multiplying 6x7, 7x6, 2x21, or 21x2. Well use 7x6 for our code. Heres how it looks when written diagonally in our pattern of seven columns and six rows.

B I T O O D

R G M T L E

N H N T O E E H A E Y E KT G O T O HT R N T SV I A E E N

And how it looks when you move the rows up: BRNHNT OIGEEH AETMYE KTGOTO TOHTOL RNTSVD EIAEEN This code can be written backward or reversed, too. Heres how it will look when charted diagonally backward. O E G T V N T A T H S E N H K O T E H E E T N A N R B E G I YM T O T O R L O I E D 18

OTNHNR BEAHEE GIGTKE YMTTHO TOTOVS TNRLON EEAIED And diagonally reversed. N V T G E O E S H T A T E A I E D T N R LO OT OT O KE YM T H E E G I NH N R B

NEEAIE DVSTNR LOTHOT OTOGTK EYMTEA HEEGIO TNHNRB There are so many ways to change this pattern: Go down one column and up the next or use a horizontal instead of a vertical pattern. Theres no way to include them all in this book, but you can experiment and create your own multiplication table code. Decipher this message. Try different factors of 24. IETF SOHT ATCL AOYE HWVS AROR Add five null letters to the following message to get a total of 30 letters. Then use the factors 3x10 to encode it in the backward pattern. Split the encoded message into six words of five letters each. GIVE MY HOMEWORK TO TORY TODAY.

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CODES FOR BLIND AND DEAF PEOPLE There are two special languages used by deaf and blind people to communicate and read. Both of these are codes of a sort. In the manual alphabet for the deaf different hand positions stand for different letters of the alphabet. Of course, there are many shortcuts in American Sign Language, or Amerslan, as its sometimes called, but learning them takes a long time. You can learn the hand positions for letters in an hour or less and then you can talk to anyone who also understands sign language.

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Can you break this coded message?

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BRAILLE Braille is the alphabet that blind people use to read and write. Its named for Louis Braille, a Frenchman who invented the system. He used a stylus, or pointed stick, to make bumps on heavy paper. By feeling the patterns of bumps, blind people could read! You dont have to be blind or raise bumps on paper to use the Braille alphabet. You can simply make dots on paper.

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Even though computers can now talk and many blind people rely on them, many more blind people still use Braille. Use the Braille alphabet to decode this message:

See how easy Braille is by dotting this message: MEET US AT TREEHOUSE WED.

SEMAPHORE Semaphore is a code that uses flags in different positions to represent letters. It was used by the military to send messages in war time, but it is also used by civilians. A long time ago it was used in Europe to send messages across lengthy distances. Two boards were fastened to a post so that they would rotate, like the hands on a clock. The positions of the arms meant different letters. A person would arrange the boards so that another person far away could watch with binoculars and decode the message. Then the receiver might send it on to another person using his own semaphore setup. It took a long time, but the message finally was passed on. Do you suppose the ones who passed it on had to be good spellers?

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Semaphore can also be used with flags. Scouts and navy personnel used semaphore for many years before the invention of satellites, computers, and cell phones. Here is what semaphore looks like with flags. You can see that it is very similar to the old board system.

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Use your chart to find out what our sailors are saying to each other.

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Use the stick semaphore system to write this message: MOMS NOT HOME. COME ON OVER.

Sherlock Holmes solved a similar code in the story The Adventure of the Dancing Men. Instead of flags, the arms and legs of the figures were in different positions to denote the letters of the alphabet. This story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is a ripping good read.

THE RULER CODE If you have a ruler (who doesnt??) you can make a quick and easy cipher. Put the ruler on a piece of paper. You may have to lay it diagonally on an 8x11 1/2 piece to fit it. Put a dot at each end of the ruler. Write the letter A over the lefthand dot. Then write the alphabet above each half-inch mark on the ruler. Youll end up without a place for the Z, so put Y and Z together on the right-hand dot. Heres what your alphabet should look like:
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y/Z

Use the measurements to write a message, like this: 3-7 9 -7 1-0-10 - 2 6 -7-11.

Are you ready to GO TO CAVE NOW?

Put this message into measurements: RILEY HAS PLANS FOR THURSDAY.

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LANGUAGE AS CODE Language is a kind of code. In the eastern countries, such as China and Japan, they dont use an alphabet like ours. Instead they use ideograms, symbols that stand for ideas. Instead of putting letters together to form words, children in these countries must memorize thousands of ideograms to learn to read and write. Languages in the western countries use letters, alone or with other letters, to represent things and ideas. For instance, you know that bed means something to sleep on, even though your idea of a bed may be completely different than mine because your bed isnt the same as mine. I may sleep on a futon while you slumber on a bunk bed. But theyre both beds. Love is another word that means different things, depending on how you use it. You cant touch or see or smell or taste love, but youve felt the emotion of love: love for your parents, a crush on a girl or boy in your class, a love of hockey or music or tacos. Its amazing how four little letters can mean so many different things! If youve learned a foreign language or if you come from a bilingual home, youve already learned a code. French people speak French the way we speak English; they dont even have to think about it. But if we wanted to learn French, wed have to learn the sounds of the letters and letter combinations, wed have to learn what the words mean, and wed have to learn how to put them into sentences so that we could be understood by another French speaker.

TWO EASY CODE LANGUAGES There are nonsense languages that have been used for decades by people who want to keep secrets from those who dont know them. Pig Latin is probably the most common, and its easy to learn, but it takes practice to become fluent. Here are the first lines of a famous poem, written in Pig Latin. ISTENLAY YMAY ILDRENCHAY ANDWAY OUYAY ALLSHAY EARHAY OFWAY ETHAY IDNIGHTMAY IDERAY OFWAY AULPAY EVERERAY. Did you recognize it? Perhaps these instructions will help you decode it. If a word starts with a vowel, simply add WAY to the end of the word. So OTHER becomes OTHERWAY, EAT becomes EATWAY, and so forth. If a word

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starts with a consonant or pair of consonants (such as THere, SHe, WHy, and so on) move the first letter or combination to the end of the word and add AY. MAY becomes AYMAY, THEY becomes EYTHAY, and BOOMERANG becomes OOMERANGBAY. Got it? Go back to the poetry lines and drop the AY from the ends of the words and move the consonant(s) at the end back to the beginning, and youll recognize the famous poem right away. Another simple language is called Turkey Irish. All you do to create this language is add AB before every vowel in the word. So SALE becomes SABALABE, DESK becomes DABESK, and COMPUTER becomes CABOMPABUTABER. You can use this as a spoken or written language.

INVISIBLE INK If youve managed to fool your friends and enemies with the secret ciphers and codes youve learned so far, imagine how baffled theyll be to intercept a secret message thats completely blank! Or at least it will look that way. There are some easy ways to make an invisible message that will show itself only to the person who knows the secret to revealing the writing. When writing in invisible ink, use an old fountain pen or a quill pen, or you can even use a toothpick. To make a quill pen, take a large feather and cut off the tip that attaches to the bird at an angle of about 45 degrees. Then cut a slit in the point to that it has two prongs. Youll have to keep dipping it into the ink but it works well. Here are a few easy invisible inks and the ways to develop them so that you can read them. Lemon juice is one of the easiest mediums to write with. You can squeeze it fresh or use bottled; it doesnt matter. Dip your writing utensil into the juice and write your message on plain white paper. Youll be able to see what youve written by the way the liquid shines on the paper, but when it dries, you wont be able to see it at all. You can use any citrus juice: orange, grapefruit, or lemon. Here are some more liquids that turn invisible when they dry: Milk Sugar (1 teaspoon dissolved in 1 cup water) Onion juice (stinky but gives excellent results) Apple juice (not as good as citrus juices) Honey (1 teaspoon in 1 cup water) 28

Vinegar Soft drinks (You can use Coke, Seven-up, or any soda that contains sugar. If color shows on the paper while youre writing, dilute with a little water. And drink the rest!) To reveal the writing from any of these inks, hold the paper over a light bulb thats turned on and move it back and forth until the writing turns brown. You can also iron the paper to develop it, or hold it over a stove burner, but if you use the stove, be very, very careful not to catch the paper or yourself on fire! On second thought, better use the light bulb. Even things you dont think of as codes actually give a message. Cattle ranchers brand their cattle to let other ranchers know whose cows they are. This custom started over a hundred years ago when cattle roamed freely through the West. Without fences to keep them in, the only way for ranchers to identify their cattle was to mark them with a hot branding iron. Thousands of brands are registered in the United States, but the same variations are used over and over. For instance, a curved line under a letter or symbol means rocking. Heres the Rocking R brand:

A curved line above a letter or symbol means swinging. What do you think this one is called?

If a letter or symbol is upside down, it means crazy. Can you figure this one out?

And if a cowboy added wings to a letter or symbol, it became a flying brand. Heres the Flying V brand.

If letters were joined, they were connected. Heres the JD connected:

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If the symbol or letter slanted, it was lazy. Whats this lethargic brand called?

Putting a carat above the letter gave it the rafter stamp:

Adding a bar above, before, after, or below added bar to the name. You wont have any trouble figuring this one out, only waiting for lunch!

Try creating some brands of your own. Use your initials, your favorite symbol or emblem, or your name. In the Dirty Thirties (ask your grandpa or your Social Studies teacher) hoboes roamed the country, looking for handouts or offering to work for food. Some people were happy to share with those homeless men, but some ran them off with mean words, sticks, or even guns. So the hoboes developed a code to let other hoboes know if a place was safe or not. Here are some of their signs and the meanings. This meant the neighborhood was a dangerous place for wanderers.

This told a man that he would be fed if he was willing to work. And he could get a free meal here, without having to work.

There was nothing good for a hobo here. This meant that the road was a good one for a traveler.

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We use some of the same types of symbols today. European countries began using symbols to represent different things common to all countries so that people could easily tell what to do or where to go. Think about the symbols for man and woman on restroom doors at the mall. Or how about the red slashed circle that means Do not enter. Or the miniature gas pump on the dashboard of your car that shows where the fuel gauge is? How many other universal symbols can you find? To sum it all up, there are thousands of codes and ciphers, maybe millions. Once you start looking for symbols that stand for other things, youll see them everywhere. You certainly dont need to see the word to recognize the logo of Pepsi-Cola. And how about the flying Windows emblem on your PC? You dont need to see the Microsoft label to know that Bill Gates is involved. Play with the ciphers, patterns, and ideas in this book and create your own secret language. Write invitations to sleepovers or parties in cipher. Keep secrets from your brothers and sisters. Most of all, have fun!

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MESSAGES DECODED

Page 2: The best time to go to the cave is when the shipment has been unpacked. Page 3: Meet us at midnight. Page 3:

Page 4: Codes are easy to make. Page 4: 23-15-18-18-15-13-15-20 11-3-1-2 5-13-15-3 20-14-5-13-16-9-8-19 19-25-1-12-5-4 14-9-1-18. Page 5: Enemy near. Evade. Page 6: Enemy near. Evade. Page 7: Give Jason the answer to the code. Page 8:

Page 9: The shipment has arrived. Pass it on to Zack. Page 11:

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Page 14: SLEEPOVER TONIGHT Page 15: HXOTM LRGYNROMNZY LUV SUXYK VXGIZOIK Page 19: I have to stay after school. (6x4) Page 19: GWTIO OVRDE KAMTY YOMHT VOOLM RXEYQ (Your null letters will be different than the ones shown here. Unscramble this to see which ones we used.) Pages 21-22: Agent Red has loot. Meet at ten. Page 23: Last delivery Sat. night. Page 23:

Page 25: Intercept smuggler ship now! Page 26:

Page 26: 8 -4-5 -2-12

3 -0-9

7 -5 -0 6 -9

2 -7-8

9 -3 -10-8 -9-1 -0 12

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